Search Results (2,703)

As global urbanization accelerates, biophilic urbanism has emerged as a key nature-based strategy for enhancing public health. While plants are critical active agents for psychological restoration, the specific pathways through which vegetation characteristics influence human–environment interactions remain fragmented. This knowledge gap hinders the evidence-based translation of biophilic principles into actionable urban design and governance. This study conducts a systematic bibliometric analysis of 443 peer-reviewed articles (2000–2025) at the intersection of restorative landscapes, urban settings, and plant-based interventions retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. Employing multiple visualization tools (VOSviewer, bibliometrix, and CiteSpace), we map publication trends, international collaborations, and thematic evolution. The results demonstrate a significant shift in the field, moving beyond the validation of foundational restorative theories (e.g., ART and SRT) to a more precise, implementation-oriented framework. This shift is characterized by the operationalization of vegetation attributes as controllable design variables, increasingly relating biophilic principles to broader nature-based solutions (NbS) agendas and evidence-informed urban governance. Thematic clustering analysis identified three core knowledge domains: (1) the role of plants as active exposure agents and behavioral mediators in psychological restoration; (2) the impact of specific plant characteristics—such as canopy structure, species diversity, and seasonal variation—on therapeutic outcomes; and (3) the integration of urban green spaces into broader governance frameworks to promote health equity and inclusive well-being. Our analysis highlights that plant-based interventions are evolving from aesthetic ornaments into precision design levers for fostering human–nature interactions. This study provides a science-based foundation for developing practical design guidelines and policy frameworks, shifting biophilic urbanism toward a robust governance strategy for creating equitable, restorative, and resilient cities. Full article

Against the backdrop of a technological revolution centered on green and low-carbon development, the deep integration of digitalization and greening has become a core engine for high-quality progress. Moving beyond linear perspectives of environmental governance, this study constructs tripartite evolutionary game models to dissect the strategic interactions among government, enterprises, and consumers. Focusing on the institutional context of e-commerce, we examine how platform-enabled transparency mechanisms (e.g., blockchain traceability and carbon labeling) shape these interactions through key parameters: greenwashing detection (θ), premium loss coefficient (η), and information screening cost (C_D). The analysis reveals that the long-term trajectory is fundamentally determined by the intrinsic economic viability of corporate transformation. Government intervention acts as an equilibrium selector, influencing the speed of convergence, while product value (consumer utility and premium) and platform transparency determine the sustainability of the equilibrium. Critically, the tripartite model shows that the optimal outcome—full enterprise transformation and consumer adoption—can be achieved without sustained government intervention when product fundamentals are sufficiently attractive. This demonstrates the potential for market self-regulation to sustain digital–green synergy. The study makes three contributions: it captures the full tripartite feedback loop, reveals the saturation effect of policy intensity, and embeds platform transparency mechanisms into an evolutionary framework. The findings reframe the government’s role as a temporary enabler and position e-commerce platforms as key governance intermediaries, offering a theoretical basis for adaptive governance strategies in digital commerce. Full article

The long-term sustainability of Australian agriculture is fundamentally constrained by the capacity, condition, availability, and governance of soil resources. Australian soils are among the oldest and most weathered globally, highly heterogeneous, and often slow or effectively irreversible to recover once degraded. Traditional approaches centred on soil health, while valuable at paddock scale, are insufficient to address national-scale challenges related to spatial variability, data continuity, economic valuation, and policy integration. This paper examines soil security as a policy-relevant framework for supporting more sustainable Australian agriculture. Building on the dimensions of soil security (capacity, condition, capital, connectivity, and codification), we synthesise recent Australian case studies to show how soil security extends beyond soil health to integrate biophysical properties, digital soil infrastructure, socio-economic value, and governance mechanisms. Drawing on recent Australian case studies, this review identifies advances in digital soil mapping, national soil assessments, economic valuation of soil capital, stakeholder connectivity, and emerging policy frameworks, while also identifying persistent gaps in regulation, data standardisation, and institutional coordination. The paper argues that soil security can help operationalise 3-N agriculture—Net-Zero, Nature-Positive, and Nutrient-Balanced systems—by translating sustainability goals into spatially explicit, place-based decisions grounded in soil realities. By explicitly accounting for soil capacity limits, condition trajectories, capital value, information flows, and codified rules, soil security can support more realistic climate mitigation strategies, targeted nature-positive interventions, and durable nutrient security outcomes. We conclude that embedding soil security more explicitly within Australian agricultural research, policy, and governance would strengthen efforts to deliver productive, resilient, and socially legitimate food and fibre systems. Without soil security, sustainability frameworks may remain difficult to operationalise consistently; with soil security, they can be translated more effectively into measurable, place-based, and durable decisions. Full article

Ubiquitination is a reversible post-translational modification crucial for cellular homeostasis and protein degradation. It is orchestrated by a cascade of ubiquitin-activating enzymes (E1), conjugating enzymes (E2), and ligases (E3) that tag proteins with ubiquitin, and deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs) that remove these tags. Through this tightly regulated ubiquitination/deubiquitination system, cells control protein turnover, localization, and activity, thereby governing processes ranging from cell cycle progression and DNA repair to immune and stress responses. Here, we review the structural and functional mechanisms of each class of enzymes in the ubiquitin–proteasome system, including E1, E2, E3, and DUBs, and highlight their roles in key signaling pathways and physiological processes. We further discuss how the dysregulation of these enzymes leads to diseases such as cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, and immune diseases, underlining the potential of targeting ubiquitination pathways for therapeutic intervention. Full article

Promoting the construction of National Forest Cities to enhance urban ecological environmental quality and foster green and sustainable development has become an important policy pathway in China’s ecological civilization agenda. This study employs panel data for 214 Chinese cities over the period 2003–2023 and adopts a difference-in-differences (DID) approach to empirically examine the impact of National Forest City construction—a policy implemented in China since 2004—on urban ecological environments and its underlying mechanisms. The results indicate that National Forest City construction significantly improves urban ecological environmental quality. The findings remain robust after a series of robustness checks. Mechanism analysis shows that National Forest City construction primarily promotes urban environmental improvement by enhancing urban green innovation and optimizing adjustments to the urban industrial structure. Further heterogeneity analysis reveals that the environmental effects of the policy are more pronounced in non-resource-based cities, non-central cities, large cities, and cities with stronger governance capacity and higher levels of environmental concern. The conclusions provide policy implications and mechanistic insights from China’s experience for other cities around the world seeking to jointly address environmental pollution and climate change through comprehensive ecological interventions and to advance green and sustainable development. Full article

Against the backdrop of intensifying global population aging, ensuring the sustainable provision of age-friendly spaces has become an important domain of urban policy intervention. A close examination of the supply–demand matching of age-friendly spaces is therefore essential for policymakers seeking to achieve social and environmental sustainability in an aging society. However, existing approaches to assessing this alignment primarily rely on quantitative analyses of geographical spatial distribution, lacking methods to evaluate the structural alignment of spatial functional types. To address this gap, this study proposes and validates a type-based quantitative approach to examining the alignment between policy supply and everyday demands for age-friendly spaces. By integrating policy text analysis, questionnaire surveys, activity logs, and behavior snapshots, the study identifies the types of age-friendly spaces mentioned by policies and those demanded in daily life, and quantitatively evaluates their alignment using a matching model. The results show that the older adults’ spatial demands shift progressively from life-oriented spaces to survival-oriented spaces as age increases and health declines. More importantly, a significant structural imbalance is evident: survival-oriented spaces are oversupplied, while life-oriented spaces remain in short supply. This study provides a diagnostic method for assessing the provision of age-friendly spaces and provides practical implications for local governments in formulating more balanced, responsive, and sustainable supply strategies. Full article

Colorectal cancer (CRC) persists as a significant public health burden due to its high morbidity and mortality rates worldwide, yet the molecular events that govern its initiation and progression remain incompletely understood. We recently conducted microRNA (miRNA) profiling and identified multiple dysregulated miRNAs in CRC compared to adjacent normal tissue. Among those, miR-138-5p emerged as a potential tumor suppressor due to its marked downregulation in CRC tissue; however, the stage-specific expression of this miRNA during CRC progression and underlying molecular mechanisms remains to be unraveled. In this study, we performed differential expression profiling of healthy colon, adenomatous polyp (AP), and CRC tissues based on public datasets, revealing significant downregulation of miR-138-5p in CRC compared to controls, but not during the AP stage, suggesting a role in later stages of malignant progression. Forced expression of miR-138-5p in HCT116 and HT-29 CRC models suppressed clonogenic survival, proliferation, and migration while inducing cell death. Additionally, miR-138-5p significantly inhibited tumor formation under three-dimensional culture settings, reinforcing its tumor-suppressive function in a physiologically relevant context. Transcriptomic profiling of miR-138-5p-overexpressing CRC models revealed widespread changes in the pathways related to zinc ion binding, cilium morphogenesis, smoothened signaling, and nuclear transport. Integrated computational and experimental analyses identified 41 potential gene targets, among which TCF3, UBE2C, EIF4EBP1, LYPLA1, and CD44 were validated as potential miR-138-5p-regulated genes. Collectively, these findings establish miR-138-5p as a stage-specific tumor suppressor in CRC, acting through coordinated regulation of oncogenic networks across multiple pathways. Downregulation of miR-138-5p appears to be a late oncogenic event, conferring proliferative, survival, and invasive advantages to tumor cells. Restoration of miR-138-5p or therapeutic targeting of its downstream effectors may represent promising avenues for CRC therapeutic intervention. Full article

Infrastructure development is a key pillar in realising the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet implementing sustainable practices across the various stages of infrastructure development remains suboptimal. This study aims to identify significant barriers to sustainability implementation in infrastructure projects in Zimbabwe and to develop targeted interventions to overcome them. A quantitative research approach was adopted, in which 246 structured questionnaires were distributed online to construction professionals in consultancy firms, contractors, and government and private property developers in Zimbabwe. The data were analysed through a multi-analytical approach using mean score, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and fuzzy synthetic evaluation. This study identified 31 barriers that hinder the implementation of sustainable construction in infrastructure projects. The top five factors are resistance to change, lack of funding, lack of sustainable construction policies, inadequate building regulations, and the perceived high cost of sustainable projects. EFA revealed five dimensions that are ranked as follows: ‘enforcement and policy-related’, ‘government support, regulations and standards-related’, ‘financial, market and attitude-related’, ‘knowledge, skill and ability-related’, and ‘technical capacity’. All dimensions tend to have a high level of impact on the implementation of sustainable practices in Zimbabwean infrastructure projects. The results highlight the need to enhance awareness and provide adequate financial information on the economic benefits of investing in sustainable infrastructure projects. The provision of financial incentives, funding initiatives, and appropriate policies, regulations, and standards can help to enhance the implementation of sustainable practices in Zimbabwe. Construction stakeholders can utilise the results of this study to improve the implementation of sustainability across infrastructure projects. Full article

Despite effective antiretroviral therapy, HIV persists in diverse tissue reservoirs that pose major barriers to a cure. This review examines the heterogeneous maintenance mechanisms of HIV reservoirs in lymph nodes, intestinal mucosa, and the central nervous system (CNS). It analyzes how distinct tissue microenvironments—including immune-privileged niches, specialized cellular subsets, and local signaling networks—govern viral persistence and latency. Lymph nodes function as a dynamic hub interconnected with systemic reservoirs; the intestinal mucosa represents a site shaped by barrier integrity, microbial translocation, and mucosal immunity; the CNS constitutes a compartmentalized sanctuary protected by the blood–brain barrier. The review further discusses tissue-specific antiretroviral drug penetration and targeted clearance strategies, providing a foundation for developing multi-site intervention approaches toward HIV cure. Full article

Indigenous territories in Amazonia sustain forest cover through the practice of swidden-fallow agriculture, yet declining land availability threatens both the ecological sustainability of this agricultural system and its contributions to community livelihoods. While scholars recognize land scarcity’s potential to drive transformations in shifting cultivation systems, we lack a systematic understanding of how local institutional frameworks shape heterogeneous responses to resource constraints. This study examines how land access mechanisms, distribution dynamics and property regimes among Indigenous communities mediate experiences of and adaptations to land scarcity in the Peruvian Amazon. We conducted a comparative case study of Solidaridad and Tamboruna, two land-scarce Indigenous communities in Peru’s Napo River basin, employing mixed methods including household surveys (n = 74), plot-level assessments, and qualitative interviews with community leaders. Our findings reveal three critical pathways through which institutions mediate scarcity outcomes. First, land access mechanisms determine whether scarce resources produce equitable constraint or acute land inequality. Second, land use intensification emerges not from scarcity alone but from accumulated inequality and household labor capacity, with land accumulated over lifecycles showing stronger associations with management practices than initial endowments. Third, where scarcity manifests as extreme polarization, it precipitates renegotiation of land property norms shaped by Indigenous sociability and moral economies, defying straightforward trajectories toward either resource privatization or collective governance. These results demonstrate that land scarcity produces divergent trajectories mediated by community-specific institutions, with swidden-fallow systems likely diminishing their capacity to sustain forest regeneration in Indigenous communities where scarcity leads to acute land inequality. Rather than uniform solutions, sustainability policy must therefore tailor interventions to local institutional contexts—prioritizing territorial expansion, facilitating communities’ own governance development, and supporting household adaptive capacity to resource scarcity. Full article

Achieving high-level self-reliance in science and technology requires a science and technology finance ecosystem that is aligned with the needs of technological innovation. To overcome bottlenecks in core technologies, firms must accelerate R&D, strengthen their core competitiveness, and pursue innovation-led, quality-oriented development. Using provincial-level data for 2013–2023, this paper constructs an index system for China’s science and technology finance ecosystem from four dimensions: science and technology financial services, science and technology capital markets, science and technology financial organizations, and government guidance for science and technology. We then measure the development level of this ecosystem and employ a panel data model to examine its impact on innovation in Specialized and Sophisticated SMEs. The results show that a more developed science and technology finance ecosystem significantly promotes innovation in these firms, with a stronger effect on substantive innovation than on strategic innovation. These findings remain robust across a series of robustness checks. Further analysis reveals significant heterogeneity across regions and levels of government intervention: the positive effect is stronger in eastern China and in regions with weaker government intervention. Mechanism tests indicate that the science and technology finance ecosystem promotes innovation by facilitating the accumulation of R&D capital and the agglomeration of scientific and technological talent. This study enriches the literature on science and technology finance ecosystems and SME innovation, and provides policy-relevant evidence for ecosystem development and the cultivation of Specialized and Sophisticated SMEs. Full article

Alcoholic fermentation in winemaking is a complex bioprocess governed by physicochemical parameters such as temperature, density, pH, CO₂ and redox potential, which critically affect yeast metabolism and wine quality. This review provides an integrated analysis of fermentative dynamics and emerging sensorization technologies, highlighting how their combined implementation enables real-time monitoring and advanced control in precision enology. Advances in conventional physicochemical sensors, spectroscopic techniques (NIR/MIR/UV-Vis) and non-conventional devices (e-noses, electronic tongues) integrated into IoT platforms enable continuous data acquisition, overcoming traditional manual sampling limitations. Predictive modeling, including kinetic models, machine learning approaches (e.g., Random Forest, XGBoost) and model predictive control (MPC/NMPC), supports anomaly detection, optimization of enological interventions and energy-efficient thermal management, while virtual sensors based on Kalman filters improve the estimation of non-measurable states (e.g., biomass, ethanol kinetics). Despite current challenges in calibration and interoperability, these innovations foster sustainable and reproducible winemaking under climate variability and pave the way for digital twins and semi-autonomous fermentation systems. Full article

Artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted drone technology in agriculture has transformed productivity and pest control techniques, resulting in novel solutions to modern farming challenges. Drones utilizing sensors, cameras, and AI algorithms can precisely monitor crop health, soil conditions, and insect infestations. Using AI-assisted drones for precision irrigation and yield predictions further improves resource allocation, promotes sustainability, and reduces operating costs. This review examines recent advancements in AI and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in precision agriculture. Key trends include AI-driven crop disease detection, UAV-enabled multispectral imaging, precision pest management, smart tractors, variable-rate fertilization, and integration with IoT-based decision support systems. This study synthesizes current research to identify technological progress, implementation challenges, scalability barriers, and opportunities for sustainable agricultural transformation. This review of peer-reviewed studies published between 2013 and 2025 uses major scientific databases and predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria covering crop monitoring, precision input application, integrated pest management (IPM), and livestock (especially cattle) monitoring. We describe the platform and payload trade-offs that govern coverage, endurance, and spray quality; the dominant analytics trends, from classical machine learning to deep learning and embedded/edge inference; and the emerging shift from monitoring-only UAV use toward closed-loop decision-making (detection–prediction–intervention). Across the literature, the strongest opportunities lie in robust field validation, multi-modal data fusion (UAV + ground sensors + farm records), and interoperable standards that enable actionable IPM decisions. Key gaps include limited cross-site generalization, scarce reporting of economic indicators (ROI, payback period, and adoption rate), and regulatory and safety barriers for routine autonomous operations. Finally, we present some case studies to emphasize the feasibility and highlight future research directions of AI-assisted drone technology. Through this review, we aim to demonstrate technological advancements, challenges, and future opportunities in AI-assisted drone applications, ultimately advocating for more sustainable and cost-effective farming practices. Full article

Background: Cervical cancer remains a leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women in Nigeria. In 2023, the Government of Nigeria, with support from Gavi and partners, introduced the single-dose human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine through a phased, school-based campaign. The first phase was launched in October 2023 across 16 states, followed by a second phase in May 2024 that expanded coverage to the remaining states and the Federal Capital Territory. This study evaluates the additional impact of a behavioral insights–informed digital intervention, comprising a social media campaign amplified by trained pharmacists serving as local influencers, implemented in 2025 to increase acceptance and uptake of HPV vaccination during routine immunization. Methods: A pre-test/post-test quasi-experimental design with a control group was implemented in three Nigerian states in 2025 to assess the additional impact of a behavioral insights–informed social media campaign designed to strengthen social approval for HPV vaccination, increase awareness of vaccination locations, and reinforce caregivers’ recognition of their adolescent daughters’ desire to be vaccinated. Messages were amplified by trained pharmacists who served as local influencers. Caregivers of adolescent girls aged 9–17 years were recruited online through targeted Facebook and Instagram advertisements during Nigeria’s transition from school-based HPV vaccination campaigns to routine immunization. Caregivers in treatment areas were exposed to geofenced social media advertisements on Facebook and Instagram and pharmacist counseling, while those in control areas were not. Logistic regression models using a difference-in-difference approach estimated the campaign’s effect on HPV vaccination, controlling for caregiver and adolescent characteristics. Additional statistical models assessed the campaign’s impact on caregivers’ motivation and ability—key drivers of behavior according to the Fogg Behavior Model. Results: HPV vaccination increased at a significantly higher rate in the treatment compared to the control area. The adjusted odds of an adolescent girl being vaccinated were 1.48 times higher in the treatment area at follow-up (95% CI: 1.14–1.92). Adjusted marginal effects indicated that exposure to the campaign increased the probability of vaccination by 8.9 percentage points relative to the control group. The rate at which caregivers’ motivation (aOR = 1.31, 95% CI: 1.00–1.70) and ability (knowing where to get vaccinated: aOR = 1.38, 95% CI: 1.07–1.79; ease of vaccination: aOR = 1.59, 95% CI: 1.22–2.06) increased was also higher in the treatment area. There was no relative increase in intervention versus control groups in factual knowledge regarding HPV vaccination. Conclusions: A behavioral insights–informed social media campaign in which pharmacists served as influencers was associated with higher HPV vaccine uptake during routine immunization. The higher rate of vaccination observed in intervention areas was associated with higher rates of caregiver motivation and ability but not with higher rates of caregiver knowledge. These findings are consistent with the potential of behavioral insights–informed digital campaigns to complement routine immunization efforts and improve vaccine uptake in low- and middle-income countries. Full article

Professional education increasingly requires graduates to make decisions in complex systems marked by multiple stakeholders, feedback, delays, uncertainty, and unintended consequences, yet systems thinking is still often taught as a set of disconnected tools rather than as an integrated professional practice. This conceptual paper adopts an integrative theory-building approach to develop a unified architecture for systems thinking in professional education, drawing purposively on systems traditions, practice-based learning, assessment scholarship, and emerging work on generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). The paper proposes four iterative practices (sensemaking and boundary setting, co-modelling and causal representation, intervention reasoning, and meta-learning) as the core architecture for learning systems thinking in professional contexts. It further translates this architecture into indicative implications for curriculum sequencing, authentic tasks, and assessment, while positioning GenAI as a cross-cutting support/risk layer that can assist iteration and critique but also introduce predictable risks such as fabricated causal links, overreliance, and false mastery. To address these risks, the paper outlines governance conditions based on traceability, uncertainty checks, stakeholder validation, and process-based assessment. Overall, the framework provides a design-oriented basis for teaching, assessing, and governing systems thinking in contemporary professional education and a foundation for future empirical testing. Full article